Now our children are both away from home, when they come back for Christmas we make sure the tree, our living tree which we keep in the garden for the rest of the year, is ensconced and decorated.
When my sister and I were children, my dad would always bring home the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, or if for some reason he got it a few days before, it would wait outside in the garage until Christmas eve, and then it would be brought inside and decorated… we never had the tree up before the 24th December! We always had a fairy on the top, not a star, and many of the glass baubles hanging on it were hand-blown by my dad. He was a scientist and made many of his own instruments for his experiments, and was adept at glass blowing and making things from glass.It was such a delight to unwrap the Christmas tree decorations each year, remembering them from last time, and we would put everything on the tree… no themed trees in those days!
When I moved to live away from home I would always return for Christmas, but we would always have our own tree in wherever I was living. I remember one year when we were living on Beech Road in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, three of us went down to collect the tree. Our house had very high ceilings so we always got a big tree. I took the front end, and the two lads were behind me. What I didn’t realise was that I had the heavy trunk end, and they hd the feathery top…. hmmm, what Christmas gentlemen!
We have our little tree up, and he looks fine, with his red skirt and fairy-lights, and every time I look at him it’s as if I see a procession of other trees stretching back over the years.
Lois Elsden 